Carry On

I felt the dirt and pebbles bouncing off my face, and sand running through my hair as the ground reverberated. That woke me up sweating, damp and disoriented. The floors continued rumbling, with dirt now falling from the cracking walls and lines running across the deteriorating ceiling. I could smell and taste the caustic ash in the air. My first large inhale brought with it a mouth full of that ash, forcing me to lunge forward off the floor, coughing forcefully spitting out that rancid taste before it completely overtook my air passages. Snorting with my nostrils flaring then blowing it out, I could taste the iron of my blood. I grappled around in the darkness, my eyes still adjusting to me waking. Searching for my mask to turn on Hi Flow Oxygen. I strapped it onto my face, with my eyes darting about the room slowly I started to focus. I could see my tank’s red alert blinking off and on.

The caustic ash was affecting our solar charging capabilities hidden above ground and in the few remaining trees. I knew that the tanks would not last much longer without me checking our solar stations. I could go 24 hours on a one-hour Oxygen charge to my lungs, so long as the Hi Flow was charged fully, but it wasn’t. I looked over and smiled sweetly, blowing a kiss to my baby. My dog Ry Ry was still in her Hi Flow tank station laying on her back dreaming and kicking around in her sleep. I needed to charge some, before I let her out. She was a mother fucking bad ass bitch that required a full charge. I loved that fucking dog. She would die for me. We also had to go out today to get whatever we could find supply wise and destroy drones in the area. “Fuck these drones”, I thought to myself as I banged the dust off Ry’s goggles, and pack in preparation, still strapped to my oxygen. “I see better than they do at night, and I am a much better shot than they are. I wish I could reprogram them to spy on who sent them!” I thought, maybe they were humans looking for more humans? There weren’t many people left, maybe none, by the looks of it around here. What was left on Earth, from what I could tell, was dangerous and I had no plans on letting them kill Keylauri and Ry Ry.

I live alone in our underground shelter and have been for two years since my mother was killed by a weaponized drone while we were out on a scouting mission together. Things on Earth went bad, like my grandmother said they would, when pharma biogenetics took over a lab where my grandmother worked. They took over her experiments that were unfinished. They accused my grandmother of taking the final vaccination coding, and DNA for the sequencing. If she did, she would have hidden it somewhere in our shelter. She always said that her work was too dangerous to be left to pharma biogenetics because they would sell it to the highest bidder globally and wouldn’t care about the consequences for humanity.

My grandmother started working at the pharma biogenetics company right out of college. Shortly after she met my grandfather, fell deeply in love, building their home right above this shelter. Not long afterwards a new pharma biogenetics company took over her lab. That’s when it got really troublesome. She tried to quit, but was followed, they tapped her phone, threatened her and finally they kidnapped my grandpa. My grandparents knew it would come to this she said because it was her lab data that they wanted, and they were determined to get it one way or another. She and grandpa had made an agreement in advance that she wouldn’t divulge the data, because if she succumbed, they would kill them both. Holding out meant at least she would survive.

Grandma was like a modern-day shaman, collecting plants, samples, and doing biological testing. Professionally, she spoke to no one at work, and never socialized, especially after they kidnapped grandpa. She strictly wore dresses, wore the same shoes, carried the same bag, wore the same titanium heart necklace on the same titanium chain that my grandpa gave her every day. She packed the same lunch, left at the same time, even shopped at the same places. She never deviated from her routine for 30 years for fear of creating any type of “disruption.” She always hoped one day that they would release grandpa, but knew, early on he was gone. She would work on the sequencing as they requested, but it never amounted to anything. She was sure that they would eventually kill her. Disgusted with their outcomes, they eventually told her she was useless and escorted her out of the lab. After that, she stayed home and was monitored until her last breath.

She told me she delivered my mother at home, and my mother delivered me at home. There’s no record of our births of course.... She stored food, supplies, water, medicine, ammunition and Hi Flow oxygen she developed to survive. The injections she developed were started, so I can use the Hi Flow for 24 hours. I wear a bandana to keep out the ash, and goggles to keep my eyes from burning in the sun. The injections made my eyes icy blue, sun sensitive, and laser sharp in the dark like a night predator, so we do scouting at night. Ry had the shots also. That’s how gram perfected them, by testing them on our pets. My grandmother was working on furthering my build to include skin that could handle more forceful blows from punching, knife attacks or even bullets- but her research wasn’t completed to my knowledge.

Yesterday while scouting the pharma biogenetics plant blew up near us. It was a huge explosion! Seems like plants are destroyed to get rid of mutants, or maybe they are getting rid of evidence?!? Not quite sure, we can’t investigate them with all of the caustic ash, and drones. It gets too dangerous for us, and so hot with the active fires. Today might prove to be a better day to look for human life.

We plan to do what my grandmother could not- complete the injections and save mankind. I just need to find my grandmother’s laptop to see where her research was being done. I need to get the genetic coding completed successfully, I sighed loudly. “All this makes me miss gram and my mom.” I said aloud, as I wiped the tears off my face, and disconnecting the HI Flow, now dead. “I better get my baby out of her station and feed her.” I walked over and took Ry out. She started jumping around and licking my face. “Let’s go see what we have,” I said scruffing up her hair and walking towards our supply closet.

I still have a lot of supplies, but it gets lonely at times just Ry and me. I would love to see more people. Good people. That’s part of the reason I scout too. Hope that there are people. The ground shook just then, throwing me off balance with dust coming down again. “Jeez”! I started to cough some but just then a side wall appeared to collapse and pop out. “Oh my God!” I’d better look at this damage, “wait what”?!? Shocked I discovered something else going on. “I’ve never seen this before.” I pulled at the wall, leaned down, and saw a hidden door panel opened to a tunnel. It appeared there was a room that I didn’t know existed. It was crawl entry at first. So, the Miss Adventurous that I am, crawled right through, Ry following. I stood up to a hidden room, awestruck. It was my grandmother’s lab. I walked slowly over to the desk sitting there and blew the dust off the area. There sat a notebook with my name on it. “Keylauri.” I opened it and it said Keylauri- you are the key, and you must carry on… in my mother’s handwriting. She knew this whole time…The injections are in the lab refrigerator…The note entry was not finished, and it was written, the week before my mother was killed two years ago.

I dropped down to the chair in front of the laptop in disbelief, yanking at the titanium heart that I now wore tethered to my neck as if it were a curse, suddenly weighing a thousand pounds. Pushing the startup button to the laptop praying that the answer would be here. A small drive popped out requesting a data input device. I sat looking stupid… “whaaaa…what device is that?” I leaned down to look, and a mechanical sounding tech noise started. My grandmother’s titanium heart opened up, an arm projected out, and inserted a drive into the laptop starting a series of random strings of letters and numbers which finally prompted for a password: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . Well, I said. “I don’t know, I can’t even guess.” “Hmmm,” looking down at the journal and reading the entry I said, “Carry On.” The laptop started and opened to a video of my grandmother speaking.

Keylauri- I want to say to you first that you are the love of your mother’s and my life. I have some things to say that might shock you. I want you to know, that we have always loved you and that will never change. EVER. I am telling you this because I feel it’s time, and you now have access to data that will tell you things about yourself that you have never been told. Keylauri you are a clone. Your mother was a clone. I cloned her from the DNA of grandpa and I before he was arrested because we knew he would be killed regardless of my cooperation. You were cloned from a scientist that I worked with and your mother. I could not risk normal child birthing processes and deliveries, but you were loved so much.

I started injections on you once I knew testing was changing soldiers into mutants. I knew mankind would struggle to survive these attacks and our government could be overthrown by privatized military mutants. I also knew you, if anyone was who we needed. No one knew you existed so we needed you to survive, or our race would perish. You had hope, promise of a new tomorrow; Keylauri, you are the future of mankind. I completed the sequence, but it will only work on you, a clone. You do have one other choice. In the lab are other clones just like you. You can start the human race over. Please consider the fate of the world. The decision is yours. I stopped the video.

“Arrrhhhhhhhh! Now I’m angry grandmother! I can’t believe that no one told me I’m a clone,” I screamed angrily. Ry licked my hand. With tears flooding my face, I buried it in my hands not knowing what to do next. Wiping them away, smearing day old dirt across them, I reached down pulled the injections and clone farms from the lab fridge. I opened the case and looked at the steam clouding the glass syringes. The injections glowed a blue violet plasma light in the darkness as they sat there. If I am so full of humanity, why is this decision so hard? “Don’t you want to save mankind Keylauri?” I mocked her out loud. Ry stepped up onto my thigh, nudging, as if to push me forward…I stared into her eyes deeply, tears still streaming knowing that this could be the last bit of compassion that we might share together. We could become infinite soldiers with no civilization, working to save humanity. Simply ironic, don’t you think? I lose mine to save theirs…Or…

We could start a family…Carry on where we left off…